I think this really depends on your situation. I was able to get a job in Boston during my final semester at CMU, mostly because it was clear I planned to move by a deadline no matter what.
I suppose, but many of my friends completing their MBA's at the time had the exact same experience going into executive positions. I guess those people would still be "young executives", so they don't fit your argument either. Is this just applicable to a very small audience?
I disagree with this, since I was able to land a job in cities hundreds of miles away not once, but twice. I was able to land a job in New York City while living in Puerto Rico. I do admit, however, this was partially due to some plain ol' luck - One of the startup's co-founders was actually travelling to Puerto Rico on vacation, so I was able to meet him personally and have an impromptu interview at the San Juan airport.
Two years later, I got laid off due to economic factors. This led to getting a job in the Bay Area. I had multiple phone interviews and a short programming test before getting the job, but I didn't have to fly over to California once.
The author does raise some good points, though. While I obviously don't have any proof, I have always suspected that some job offers were passed over me due to my location at the time, especially while in Puerto Rico (two prospective employers strongly suggested that I get a visa to work in the U.S. - ignoring the fact that Puerto Rico is a U.S. territory, making me a U.S. citizen). So while I would say it's a bit more difficult to go job-hunting in remote locations, it's definitely not impossible.
Ditto. Unless you're looking for bar work, or something where job seeking involves actively canvassing locations, then even if you did move to city XYZ your job seeking would largely still be performed online.
It would also be foolish to move to somewhere like the Bay area or Los Angeles where the location of your new job could result in a 90 minute commute both way. (e.g. you move to North Beach and land a job in Palo Alto). Moving sucks. Moving twice sucks more :)
What you must be prepared to do however is fly to city XYZ at a few days notice, and potentially on your own dime, for one or more interviews. And if you do land that job, be prepared to start the next week.
And if you do land that job, be prepared to start the next week.
Yeah, crap, I made the mistake of not being prepared for that when I moved out here (Cambridge area, MA). I interviewed, they wanted me right away, so I had to literally pack my things and get my ass out there before I could do basic stuff like look for a place to live. I had my laptop and a suitcase full of clothes and other stuff and that was it.
"Two years later, I got laid off due to economic factors. This led to getting a job in the Bay Area. I had multiple phone interviews and a short programming test before getting the job, but I didn't have to fly over to California once."
Personally, I'd be wary of a company wanting to hire me without having to meet me in person. Inversely, if I'm running a company, I won't hire somebody I haven't even met.
Granted, it can be a crap shoot, as the author of this article pointed out on his site. But I suppose this need has diminished a bit recently, with so much information - both work and non-work related - about people and companies available out there now. As soon as my current employers showed interest in me, I went through the Internet to grab any piece of information about the company I could find. I wasn't going to move 2500+ miles away without getting a good idea what I was getting myself into. The company had been recently well-funded, seemed stable and was heading in a good direction that interested me. Three months in, it seems I was correct.
I asked one of the higher-ups this same question after being hired, and they said that they scouted my blog, Twitter and Github accounts, among others, and with what they heard over the phone, they felt I was a really good fit in their company. Had I not taken the time to build my online persona, I doubt I would've had been hired. This doesn't just apply to job-hunting in remote locations, but nowadays it should be a big part of it.
I'm with you and I find the idea of "move there THEN find a job" rather foolish. Most people can't afford to do this, but most middle+ class workers can afford to fly somewhere and interview. Then if you get the job you just take it, stay in a long term hotel for a while and then get yourself settled. I've gotten most of my jobs doing this in my rather nomadic life.
Finding the best jobs takes a lot of commitment to taking many different networking meetings with executives, recruiters, entrepreneurs, VC’s, investment bankers, etc.
What type of position does he think his readers are looking for?
Director, VP, COO or even CEO roles at startups. To find these jobs the best sources are the ones I mentioned. You don't have to agree with me: but my empirical evidence suggests this is true. Now ... I'm clearly not talking about developers, who seems to be the main readers of HN so I know that this advice may not apply to many of you.
I think it would be beneficial to mention that context more clearly in the article. As it is written the advice seems to be very generic which is why many people here are disagreeing with it.
Thanks. This is what I suspected and was trying to provoke from my question - your target audience for this point might not fully be the audience here.
At the University of Waterloo just west of Toronto, almost everyone gets a job from a remote location during their CO-OP terms while in university, and then also when they graduate.
I got a job in Boston from Toronto, and then one in New York from Boston. Getting flown out to Silicon Valley or Seattle for the bigger companies is also pretty common. It's even easier when you have a friend working in another city. The best places to work don't care where their candidates come from if they're good and willing to move.
I think the guy who wrote this article meant to say that it's easier to find a local job. But he's seriously out of touch with reality if he believes it's really hard to find a job in another city.
I just moved from Montana to San Francisco for a job I got while in Denver looking for a place to live.
I was leaving MT and thought it'd be great to move to the Bay Area but figured I couldn't afford it without a job lined up so I decided on Denver. While in the process of moving, a job opportunity came up in the Bay Area (I wasn't looking but it's the exact job I wanted) so I pursued it, not thinking I would get it but for the interview experience. Well, while trying to figure out what area of Denver to settle in I got a job offer. I repacked the U-Haul and headed West. Now I'm here and loving it!
I think it's silly people still say things like "You can't do this, it'll never happen and here's why." It might be unlikely but "never" is a pretty strong word.
I'm just finishing up the process of getting a job in Hong Kong from east-coast North America.
It was a successful process for the two most often cited reasons: timing and connections.
I was specifically targeted by someone who followed my work (blog/twitter/github)..which means I didn't have to work so hard to sell myself on technical merits to people half-way around the world.
Also, personal changes in my life suddenly made me mobile for the first time since graduating (a decade ago). Had the recruiting happened a few weeks earlier, I would have said no.
I landed a job in Dubai while living in Vancouver. I landed a job in Vegas while living in Dubai. Then I landed another job in Dubai while living in Vegas. If you are willing to go the distance (even on your own $) there are no borders.
Before getting upset about this, make sure you read what the author says (in an update) near the end:
I specially carved out “young people” from my argument. Most young people are infinitely mobile. Also, I need to carve out mid-level developers. They tend to be fairly mobile. Finally, I should carve out international people. I talk about that in the comments.
So that leaves senior execs: Directors, VP, CEO types. This is the group I’m mostly talking about.
...in other words, this article is specifically targeted at well under 1% of the viewership of HN (I suspect we have many aspiring "CEO types" here, but mostly they are building up companies from scratch, not attempting to get inserted into them once they're up and running), and explicitly excludes the rest of us from this advice.
It seems even for those, it must be a particular range of company types and sizes? Large companies, from what I can tell, pay almost no attention to location in hiring execs, and it's common for high-level execs to jump from company to company in different cities (say, to pick an example in the news lately, Carly Fiorina being hired as CEO of Palo-Alto-based HP, when she was living in New Jersey at the time).
This has been my experience also. I have a friend who is a SVP at a very large company. She lives in one state while managing offices in 6 other states and 3 other countries. This means she is either working out of her house or traveling to the various offices. The only real requirement (and mainly to keep her sanity) is to live near a city with a major airport.
A lot of people pointed out counter-examples to the message of this article, and it is obviously much easier to get hired in another city in the actual world, vs. a hypothetical world where every hiring company thought like Mark Suster.
However, he still has a good point, which is that you're better off (more likely to get a better job) if you move first. That leave room to succeed without moving first.
Considering how many traditional companies commonly offer relocation assistance and how often we read about peoples' experience flying cross-country to interview with tech companies like Microsoft and Google, it was hard to take this article very seriously beyond the introduction.
I think that may be true of executives (I've never hired an executive, so I can't say) (1), but I don't know a single big name tech company (including high growth start-ups) that doesn't fly talent out from all over the country and relocate them.
That being said, the bar is always higher (even if unconsciously) for candidates that require visas or relocation. If you're good, however, that's not a worry.
(1) OTOH, Wernel Vogels had certainly been relocated from Cornell to work at Amazon. I'd definitely say he has "the" job. One anecdote doesn't make a counter example, but this example shows that if you're great, you can find a job anywhere.
For people involved with recruiting be aware that a lot of the questions he describes as using may well be illegal depending on your jurisdiction.
In most of Europe asking questions about where someone grew up or family connections to the locality can be considered as discriminatory (against married people, against people who grew up in the "wrong" neighbourhoodm etc.)
I don't see why an employer would need to ask those kind of questions in the first place. Can't they just check the candidate's Facebook page, Twitter profile, blog, etc.?
Enough people have that kind of information out there on the net nowadays that I'd expect the company to be able to find it for most candidates.
I wonder- is it the asking itself that's illegal, or is the ban on asking simply a convenient and easy to enforce proxy for the real legal issue (using a job candidate's personal situation or background in a discriminatory fashion)?
If it's the asking that's issue, then, sure, Facebook/Twitter/whatever is fair game (although I'd be curious to learn what a judge would say on the matter). If it's the discrimination itself, however, then I'd expect the same rules (i.e., don't touch it with a ten-foot pole) to apply.
Personally, if I were doing hiring, I'd go out of my way to remain as ignorant as possible of any candidate's personal status, simply as a "covering my ass" tactic. That would (of course) include avoiding the standard verboten interview questions, but I would take it a step further and actively avoid looking them up on Facebook or whatever. If I avoid ever learning whether or not they have kids, I can't be accused of not hiring them on account of of their family obligations.
32 comments
[ 400 ms ] story [ 2893 ms ] threadThat presumes that you already know where that job is. The rest of us have to do some remote searching and be willing to move when we find it.
Two years later, I got laid off due to economic factors. This led to getting a job in the Bay Area. I had multiple phone interviews and a short programming test before getting the job, but I didn't have to fly over to California once.
The author does raise some good points, though. While I obviously don't have any proof, I have always suspected that some job offers were passed over me due to my location at the time, especially while in Puerto Rico (two prospective employers strongly suggested that I get a visa to work in the U.S. - ignoring the fact that Puerto Rico is a U.S. territory, making me a U.S. citizen). So while I would say it's a bit more difficult to go job-hunting in remote locations, it's definitely not impossible.
It would also be foolish to move to somewhere like the Bay area or Los Angeles where the location of your new job could result in a 90 minute commute both way. (e.g. you move to North Beach and land a job in Palo Alto). Moving sucks. Moving twice sucks more :)
What you must be prepared to do however is fly to city XYZ at a few days notice, and potentially on your own dime, for one or more interviews. And if you do land that job, be prepared to start the next week.
Yeah, crap, I made the mistake of not being prepared for that when I moved out here (Cambridge area, MA). I interviewed, they wanted me right away, so I had to literally pack my things and get my ass out there before I could do basic stuff like look for a place to live. I had my laptop and a suitcase full of clothes and other stuff and that was it.
Personally, I'd be wary of a company wanting to hire me without having to meet me in person. Inversely, if I'm running a company, I won't hire somebody I haven't even met.
I asked one of the higher-ups this same question after being hired, and they said that they scouted my blog, Twitter and Github accounts, among others, and with what they heard over the phone, they felt I was a really good fit in their company. Had I not taken the time to build my online persona, I doubt I would've had been hired. This doesn't just apply to job-hunting in remote locations, but nowadays it should be a big part of it.
What type of position does he think his readers are looking for?
http://xkcd.com/285/
I got a job in Boston from Toronto, and then one in New York from Boston. Getting flown out to Silicon Valley or Seattle for the bigger companies is also pretty common. It's even easier when you have a friend working in another city. The best places to work don't care where their candidates come from if they're good and willing to move.
I think the guy who wrote this article meant to say that it's easier to find a local job. But he's seriously out of touch with reality if he believes it's really hard to find a job in another city.
I was leaving MT and thought it'd be great to move to the Bay Area but figured I couldn't afford it without a job lined up so I decided on Denver. While in the process of moving, a job opportunity came up in the Bay Area (I wasn't looking but it's the exact job I wanted) so I pursued it, not thinking I would get it but for the interview experience. Well, while trying to figure out what area of Denver to settle in I got a job offer. I repacked the U-Haul and headed West. Now I'm here and loving it!
I think it's silly people still say things like "You can't do this, it'll never happen and here's why." It might be unlikely but "never" is a pretty strong word.
It was a successful process for the two most often cited reasons: timing and connections.
I was specifically targeted by someone who followed my work (blog/twitter/github)..which means I didn't have to work so hard to sell myself on technical merits to people half-way around the world.
Also, personal changes in my life suddenly made me mobile for the first time since graduating (a decade ago). Had the recruiting happened a few weeks earlier, I would have said no.
I specially carved out “young people” from my argument. Most young people are infinitely mobile. Also, I need to carve out mid-level developers. They tend to be fairly mobile. Finally, I should carve out international people. I talk about that in the comments.
So that leaves senior execs: Directors, VP, CEO types. This is the group I’m mostly talking about.
...in other words, this article is specifically targeted at well under 1% of the viewership of HN (I suspect we have many aspiring "CEO types" here, but mostly they are building up companies from scratch, not attempting to get inserted into them once they're up and running), and explicitly excludes the rest of us from this advice.
However, he still has a good point, which is that you're better off (more likely to get a better job) if you move first. That leave room to succeed without moving first.
That being said, the bar is always higher (even if unconsciously) for candidates that require visas or relocation. If you're good, however, that's not a worry.
(1) OTOH, Wernel Vogels had certainly been relocated from Cornell to work at Amazon. I'd definitely say he has "the" job. One anecdote doesn't make a counter example, but this example shows that if you're great, you can find a job anywhere.
In most of Europe asking questions about where someone grew up or family connections to the locality can be considered as discriminatory (against married people, against people who grew up in the "wrong" neighbourhoodm etc.)
Enough people have that kind of information out there on the net nowadays that I'd expect the company to be able to find it for most candidates.
If it's the asking that's issue, then, sure, Facebook/Twitter/whatever is fair game (although I'd be curious to learn what a judge would say on the matter). If it's the discrimination itself, however, then I'd expect the same rules (i.e., don't touch it with a ten-foot pole) to apply.
Personally, if I were doing hiring, I'd go out of my way to remain as ignorant as possible of any candidate's personal status, simply as a "covering my ass" tactic. That would (of course) include avoiding the standard verboten interview questions, but I would take it a step further and actively avoid looking them up on Facebook or whatever. If I avoid ever learning whether or not they have kids, I can't be accused of not hiring them on account of of their family obligations.